“Pushing them back to their DropShips and away from Terra will be enough for one day. But Crow has to come first.”

Tara climbed the access ladder into the cockpit of her ’Mech. Once inside, she put on and connected the neurohelmet that allowed her to interface with and control the ’Mech, and the cooling vest that kept her from succumbing to the debilitating heat of the cockpit’s interior during a battle. With her mind still mostly on the twin problems of Anastasia Kerensky and Ezekiel Crow, she ran through the Hatchetman’s primary and secondary security sequences, and brought the ’Mech’s power plant to life.

“Testing, command circuit,” she said over the cockpit’s internal comms. “One, two, three, three, two, one. How copy, over.”

“Copy all, test sat,” Bishop said over the earphones. “I’m mounting up now.”

“Keep your honor, that’s all I ask.”

“That’s all I’ve ever tried to do, ma’am,” Bishop said. “And you try to keep your head. We’re going to need you later.”

Tara Campbell set the Hatchetman into motion, walking it out of the camp, heading west. She felt the earth tremble under the Hatchetman’s feet with every step she took. The quickly thawing ice crystals in the previously frozen earth left voids in the soil where water gathered, and the ground she walked over had the consistency of thick chocolate pudding.

Up ahead of her, Ezekiel Crow was waiting.

Countryside Near Belgorod

Terra

Prefecture X

April 3134; local spring

Tara Campbell saw the Blade’s heat signature on infrared before the opticals picked it out. Not long after, it came into visual range: a long-legged silhouette, for a ’Mech, and short in the torso, with the distinctive multiple weapons array of rotary autocannon, medium laser, and short-range laser in its right arm. Not the most hard-hitting of BattleMechs, but fast, and—with a clever MechWarrior at the controls—capable of devastating feats of fire and maneuver. She keyed on the all-frequency broadcast.

“Good morning, Paladin Crow.”

“Good morning, Countess,” came the reply, also over all frequencies. “We still don’t have to do this, you know. Tell Anastasia Kerensky that you’ve rescinded your challenge. Let me kill her for you, and then you can defeat the Wolves.”

“I don’t make deals with cowards and oath breakers,” Campbell replied, keeping her voice even. “If you still want to help the Republic in spite of everything that you’ve done, then behave in a civilized manner and step aside.”

“Civilized?” She could hear the bitter mockery in his voice; what she couldn’t tell—with only the words to go by, and not his face—was whether the bitterness was directed at her, or at himself. “We are standing between two armies, my lady, and before tonight the fate of a world will be settled by force of arms. Don’t talk to me of civilization.”

“Then there’s no more point in talk. Come here and pay for your crimes.”

“One more thing before we begin,” he said. “This is not for you, Countess. Captain Bishop—if I happen to win, I would ask you and the men and women of Northwind to join me in defeating the Steel Wolves.”

Tara Campbell keyed the private circuit between her and Bishop’s Pack Hunter. “I don’t want to sound like a spoilsport,” she said, “but if Ezekiel Crow happens to win I want you to kill him. Let him take out Anastasia first, if you think it’s a good idea to do it that way—but kill him afterward.”

“You got it,” her aide said, also over the private circuit. Then, on the open circuit: “Don’t worry, Paladin. I’ll take the honorable course.”

“Thank you, Captain Bishop,” Crow said. “And now the time for talk has ended.”

The circuit snapped off and the sound of the carrier wave died away.

Tara flipped on her targeting computer and locked it onto Ezekiel Crow’s heat plume. He was in motion, and she’d been right in her analysis of the coming fight. He was running at her, approaching on a diagonal to make her targeting more difficult, and dodging from side to side as he came.

He was fast. The first wisps of laser fire came from the extended-range laser in the Blade’s right arm. He had two lasers to her one, and she had to shift her ’Mech’s entire torso to bring its single laser to bear.

A stitch of autocannon rounds slammed into her and into the ground in front of her, and then Crow was dancing the Blade back out of range.

Tara walked steadily in his direction. She could feel the thick mud sucking at the Hatchetman’s feet. Crow was circling her. She turned to follow his motion. No sense getting heated up chasing him when he could so easily outdistance her.

If he wanted to achieve all of his goals, he had to win this fight. All she had to do was not lose it.

“How are you doing out there, ma’am?” came Captain Bishop’s voice over the command circuit.

“Doing well so far, no damage.”

“Don’t let me distract you then. Standing by this circuit. Out.”

The Blade was coming straight on. Tara set the ultra autocannon in her ’Mech’s right torso to fire at optimal range—let Crow waste ammo if he felt like it—and brought the Hatchetman into a crouch to lower her target profile. A glance at her temperature readouts showed her that the Blade’s lasers were scourging the skin of her ’Mech unmercifully, but the Hatchetman’s heat sinks could take it, especially if she didn’t move.

Instead, she waited. He was approaching—approaching—now! Her autocannon whirled, its shells hurtling downrange like a bar of explosive iron—only to see the Blade dodge aside, the rounds whizzing past it to explode harmlessly in the barren hills outside Belgorod.

Crow was no fool, she reflected. He had to have the range figured as accurately as she did. And he knew to the round how many shells she habitually carried—he’d been all over her ’Mech during their time on Northwind. He’d been less forthcoming about his own. She knew some things—and here she broke off thinking as she tried to pull the Hatchetman up out of its crouch and jump away, the better to dodge his own autocannon fire.

Too late. He’d only taken five shots; they all hit, slamming into her ’Mech’s upper chest and head. The rounds impacted on the Hatchetman’s armored exoskeleton like blows from an enormous fist. Her laser sought his ’Mech as he once again dodged out of range, seeking to circle and attack again from a different angle.

The morning outside was growing warmer, and the Blade and the Hatchetman were churning the ground to mud under their feet. The Blade came in again, at a run. It too was splashed with mud, the colors of its bright exterior obscured as if by a coat of dark, wet paint.

Tara set her laser to tracking, aiming at the center of the Blade’s torso. With the autocannon, though, she’d need to be more careful. Target his legs. If she could cripple him—

Her rounds spattered into the opposing ’Mech. It didn’t break stride. Instead, it dashed quickly out of range. A readout on her instrument panel blinked red. She’d taken some hits, and her laser was burning hot. She’d have to be more cautious from now on—the suction required for each step in the steadily thickening mud was taking more power than she’d calculated.

The ground underfoot would have to be affecting Crow, too. His ’Mech was lighter than hers, but even a light ’Mech was a heavy and ponderous thing. Thirty-five tons of sprinting steel would chew the wet earth to a sucking, semiliquid slop.

But Ezekiel Crow doesn’t have jump jets, she thought. I have jump jets.

More autocannon rounds took her. She fired back. The Blade and the Hatchetman were matched in range. And she was a bigger target. Desperate situations—